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Iran releases Canadian prisoner Hamid Ghassemi-Shall

Ghassemi-Shall was arrested when he went to visit his mother in 2008, accused of being a spy. He was sentenced to death.

An undated photo of Hamid Ghassemi Shall, right, as he visits his mother in Tehran with his brother Alborz. The Iranian-born Canadian has been detained in Iran since May 2008 and was sentenced to death in November 2009. His brother died in custody, reportedly of cancer. His Toronto wife is fighting for his release. (Handout Photo)

Antonella Mega said the imprisonment of her husband, Hamid Ghassemi- Shall, in a notorious Iranian prison “turned my life upside-down.” (Family photo)

It was the phone call Antonella Mega had waited for during more than five emotionally devastating years: her husband, Hamid Ghassemi-Shall, had been released on Monday from Iran’s grim Evin Prison, where he had been held on espionage charges and sentenced to death.

“I’m completely elated,” said Mega, who has campaigned tirelessly for his release. “I’m almost speechless. Hamid hardly knows what is happening. He just wants to come home to Canada.”

The unexpected release was part of an amnesty for some 80 political prisoners, in advance of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to the United Nations Tuesday, where he will make his maiden speech ahead of difficult negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

“I had just arrived from a trip to Italy today,” said Mega from the couple’s Toronto home. “I had no idea this would happen. All I want is to have Hamid back with me again.”

Ghassemi-Shall, 44, an Iranian-born Canadian who emigrated from Iran after the 1979 Islamic revolution, was seized on a visit to his widowed mother in May 2008. His arrest followed that of his brother, Alborz Ghassemi-Shall, who died following interrogation in Evin Prison.

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Human rights groups have campaigned for the release of Ghassemi-Shall, as well as Canadian resident Saeed Malekpour and blogger Hossein Derakhshan. Malekpour is currently serving a life sentence on charges that have been widely condemned as spurious. Derakhshan is serving 19 ½ years in Evin Prison.

Mega said that she talked to her husband three times on Monday after receiving news of his release from his family in Iran.

“We talked, and Hamid could hardly answer,” she said. “We’d say goodbye, and then call again because we just wanted to go on talking.”

During more than five years of imprisonment, Ghassemi-Shall has been allowed only short and sporadic calls to Mega.

He was interrogated numerous times in a prison that is notorious for torture and brutal conditions.

“These years turned my life upside-down,” Mega told the Star last year. “Being falsely accused and condemned to death is the worst horror anyone could imagine, not only for them but for their family.”

A business systems analyst, Mega said that during the severe stress of her husband’s imprisonment she lost her job, her health and hopes for the future. At the time Ghassemi-Shall was arrested the couple was planning to adopt a child.

They had met in 1995 in the Eaton Centre store where Ghassemi-Shall worked as a shoe salesman.

“When Hamid was in jail I never knew what would happen to him from one day to the next,” Mega said. “Every time the phone rang I was afraid.”

At the time Ghassemi-Shall was arrested, Iran was in political turmoil in advance of a 2009 presidential election. Its powerful Revolutionary Guard viewed expatriates with suspicion, and relations with the West were plummeting as nuclear negotiations failed.

Iran’s hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was reviled for his flamboyant outbursts against Israel and growing crackdown on human rights, as well as the regime’s reported escalation of its uranium enrichment program that could lead to a nuclear bomb. Iran was slapped with severe economic sanctions.

Rouhani, who won an election earlier in June as the sole reformist candidate, has made it clear he wants to mend fences with the West, and last week released 11 political prisoners, including prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.

Amnesty International said the releases mark “the need for a fundamental shift in Iran’s policies on human rights” ahead of the annual UN General Assembly summit of world leaders this week.

In the past six years, Western leaders habitually left the assembly when Ahmadinejad spoke. But commentators are betting that Rouhani will get a more receptive hearing at the UN Tuesday. Nuclear talks are expected to resume between Iranian and U.S. officials in New York.

“I am very happy for Hamid and his family who have all suffered so greatly,” said Sen. Linda Frum, who campaigns in Ottawa for Iranian prisoners. “But it also reminds me that thousands of others remain in unlawful captivity in Iran.”

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